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Jackie MannWHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUFFERING?the importance of Worldview.24066503429000When young people are asked why they reject the Christian faith, they often respond by saying words to this effect: “If there is a God, how can he permit the terrible suffering that we see all around us?”12065364807500The reaction is understandable, and we need to be prepared to deal with it, both as a pastoral and as an apologetics issue. Young people are exposed at first hand to bereavement, illness, pain, overwork, abuse and all kinds of other unpleasant experiences. This happens on two levels. First the universal. We read in our newspapers or see on TV about horrific natural disasters. The Bangladesh cyclone of 1970, the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, the 2010 Haiti earthquake: all claimed more than 150,000 lives in a short space of time. Even in stable societies, there is much pain. Approximately half a million people die in the UK each year – many from natural causes but all beloved by someone. Then there are stand-out events like the Aberfan disaster, (pictured) which caused the death of 144 people, 116 of them schoolhildren, on 21 October 1966. Second, the personal level. We engage with suffering in ways which previous generations did not and could not. People on 15 April 1912 heard about the Titanic disaster by reading newspapers or receiving telegrams. People in September 2001 saw the destruction of the Twin Towers in real time and vivid detail on their own TV screen. This last year we have on our TV screens the bombing of schools and hospitals in Syria.In the light of these realities, we need a worldview that holds water, that provides a robust explanation for the suffering we see people experiencing. Any worldview that does not provide a satisfactory answer to these questions is not worth holding. Tim Keller in his book Walking with God through Pain and Suffering quotes the work of Richard Shweder who has provided four groupings of worldviews on suffering. For each grouping of worldviews he asks how they analyse the following: a) the cause of suffering; b) the response to suffering; c) the resolution of suffering.1) The moralistic view.a) cause of suffering is wrongdoing.b) response to suffering is that we must do good.c) resolution of the problem is eternal bliss.This has elements of karma embedded in it. Suffering occurs because of what you have done – possibly in a previous incarnation. There are elements of this view to be found in the prescriptions of Job’s friends: “If you are suffering, it must be because you have done something bad”. We even find a vestige of it in its positive form in Maria’s song in The Sound of Music:Perhaps I had a wicked childhoodPerhaps I had a miserable youthBut somewhere in my wicked miserable pastI must have had a moment of truthFor here you areStanding thereLoving meWhether or not you shouldSo somewhere in my youthOr childhoodI must have done something good.2) The self-transcendent view.a) cause is illusion.b) response is detachment.c) resolution is enlightenment.This is found in many of the new spiritualities. It includes the classic stoic (also Buddhist) view: detach yourself from emotion; keep a stiff upper lip; keep your chin up because everything is a mere illusion. The community is what counts, and the loss and grief felt by any individual are not important. 3) The fatalistic view.a) cause is destiny.b) response is endurance.c) resolution is glory and honour.You respond by submitting, by accepting your destiny. There are clearly some Islamic elements in this view. Indeed the etymology of the word Islam signifies submission.4) The dualistic view.a) cause is cosmic conflict.b) response is purified faithfulness.c) resolution is the triumph of light over darkness.This view builds on the idea of a cosmic conflict in which the forces of good and evil are engaged in a desperate struggle for supremacy, with the outcome in doubt and each instance of suffering representing a score for the evil side.Most of the great religions of the world incorporate some of the ideas sketched out above. By contrast, the modern secular view has a radically different approach to suffering.5) The secular view.a) cause is accident.b) response is technique: we learn techniques to cope with suffering.c) resolution is a better society.The secularist view is built on the conviction that this world is all there is. There is no design or purpose. Our aim in life is to pursue happiness. If you experience suffering, that is going to be an interruption to your happiness. There is neither rhyme nor reason in suffering, only pitiless indifference. You create your own meaning for the material world. If you are lucky, why worry about others? Respond with techniques to enable you to practise pleasure to the maximum extent possible.It is noteworthy that adherents of the secular view have a tendency to “smuggle in” ideas from other approaches (including Christian) in an attempt to make sense of their suffering, even though they reject the presuppositions upon which the worldview is based.6) Elements of a Christian view.i) There is a God (Gen. 1:1). We are not merely the products of fate and chance. God is personal and wise: the throne is occupied.ii) There was a fall. In the original design, there was no death. The human heart when confronted with suffering knows instinctively that this is not what it was designed for. That is why Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35). After the fall, there was a catalogue of suffering. As Francis Schaeffer pointed out, human beings experienced a fourfold alienation: humans were alienated from God, from themselves, from the opposite sex and from nature. Good things turn to evil. The brokenness of the world affects the human race. If we are honest, we have to admit that we can become practical deists: we feel that we deserve a comfortable life, and that suffering is an unwarranted intrusion. If we took a more logical view, we probably should be asking rather why, in the light of the fall, there is still so much good in the world.iii) Much human suffering occurs as a direct result of human sin, greed and pride. War causes huge suffering and devastation, yet all wars have their origin in human sin. The same can be said to be true of many natural disasters: for example, the Aberfan disaster was a direct result of the greed of the coal companies and their failure to make proper arrangements for disposing of waste from the mining operation.iv) The Bible gives voice to pain. The biblical view does not see suffering as an illusion. Some suffering we bring on ourselves (think of Jonah running away from God, David consorting with Bathsheba). But suffering is emphatically not retribution. Jesus atoned when he died on the cross. The Bible gives us permission to express our feelings on the topic of suffering: think of so many of the psalms. The Bible also exposes erroneous views of suffering.v) The Bible introduces us to the suffering servant. We have a wounded saviour. The First World War poet Edward Shillito expressed this well in his poem Jesus of the Scars, published in 1919:The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.Jesus experienced suffering in his own life. We have a suffering saviour. God is both sovereign and suffering. In the light of that, our suffering has meaning.vi) There will be judgement, and therefore we have hope. Human beings crave justice. They cannot believe that lack of judgement is all that there is. There will be a bodily resurrection, and gloriously renewed life, a glorious future. The well-known verse (Romans 8:28) which says that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” is placed in the context of the sufferings of Christ and our being made more like him. As Keller puts it: “Christianity offers not merely a consolation but a restoration — not just of the life we had but of the life we always wanted but never achieved. And because the joy will be even greater for all that evil, this means the final defeat of all those forces that would have destroyed the purpose of God in creation, namely, to live with his people in glory and delight forever”.316230054673500So we could argue that the proper human response is to see suffering as a productive process. At the same time, we acknowledge that suffering is not automatically productive. Deep suffering can indeed engender doubt, which is one of the reasons we need to prepare ourselves beforehand to handle it well. But the Bible (for instance in 1 Peter) teaches that suffering does prepare us for glory, although equilibrium in suffering is hard to maintain. And we must not forget the role of the Christian community in the resolution of suffering: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15).Keller puts it in these words: “Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.” So in conclusion let us hold on to these precious truths. God is personal and wise. Suffering is complex and hard to fathom. The Bible gives voice to pain. We have a wounded God: Jesus suffered with us and for us. Suffering is not to be seen as any kind of payback or retribution. There will be a resurrection and a new order of creation.Post script. The other three verses of Edward Shillto’s poem are printed below:If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.??The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;In all the universe we have no place.Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.Jackie Mann is on the staff of Myton Church, Warwick. Before that she was a Team Leader with UCCF and Regional Director for Friends International. She was one of the speakers at the TISCA Chaplains’ Conference in February 2015. ................
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